Walter Mulligan tackles next challenge as Pinconning’s new football coach - mlive.com

PINCONNING, MI – Walter Mulligan is ready.

Ready for his first head coaching job.

Ready for Pinconning High School football.

Ready for a challenge.

“Everything I’ve ever done is a challenge,” he said. “I’m not afraid of a challenge.”

Mulligan has accepted a mighty task, taking the reins as the new head coach of a Pinconning football program that is in a 10-year funk. Pending the school board’s approval at its Monday meeting, Mulligan will lead the Spartans into a new era this fall.

A 2011 graduate of Bay City Central, Mulligan has spent the past eight years gaining knowledge and building a resume as a football coach. Each of his high school stops – Bay City All Saints, Saginaw Heritage and Saginaw Valley Lutheran – has presented a tall rebuilding task that he was willing to tackle.

So Pinconning offers a situation with which he is familiar.

“There are core values I want to put in place, and they don’t really talk about winning,” said the 27-year-old Mulligan. “They talk about being in the right state of mind. Your focus has to be on things you have control over, and that’s attitude and effort.

“When adversity hits and things aren’t going right, it’s all about attitude and effort.”

Pinconning has dealt with its share of football adversity in the past decade. The program has posted just one winning season in 10 years, going 19-72 – with a 33-game losing streak -- over that timeframe. The program changed hands from Chip Kleinhans to Ben Tomke to Dave LeVasseur and changed affiliation from the North East Michigan Conference to independent to the Tri-Valley West to the Jack Pine Conference during that span.

The Spartans could certainly use some stability, and hope that their new hire can provide it.

“He’s very enthusiastic and eager to start,” said Kari Loll, the Pinconning athletic director. “He’s going to mesh well with the student body and create a good rapport with them. Our numbers are low, so hopefully he’ll be able to draw some of those kids into football who don’t necessarily see themselves as football players.”

Mulligan said he’s had his sights on a coaching career since he started helping his dad, Walt Mulligan, with the South End Wolves of the Bay Area Youth Football League when he was a junior in high school. In 2013, he was hired by Joe Willey to help with the rebuild at All Saints, and the two have coached together ever since.

Walter Mulligan confers with his father, Walt Mulligan, while coaching Saginaw Heritage.With permission Joe Willey

Mulligan spent 2013-14 under Willey with the Cougars, then served primarily as his defensive coordinator at Heritage 2015-17 before working in the same role at Valley Lutheran last fall. In between, Mulligan served as a graduate assistant with an emphasis on analytics for the Saginaw Valley State University football team.

In Mulligan, the Spartans are getting a disciplinarian, a tireless worker and a film junkie, according to Willey.

“Even though he’s young, he’s got a lot of great experience. Truth is, he’s been my right-hand man for seven years,” Willey said.

“He lets a loss sit with him a little longer than most. He wants to be great, so he likes to dig into the tape immediately and find out what went wrong. Sometimes I have to tell him to go to bed.”

Mulligan said he looks up to many of the coaches who mentored him along the way, such as Jim Eurick, Bill Johnston and Bryan Bishop, and has already contacted former Pinconning coach Al Doty for advice. He said he already understands that the success of a smalltown program depends on how the community embraces it, and he expects many exciting, fan-filled Friday nights at the stadium.

“I’ve seen spurts of toughness, spurts of aggressiveness. They’re a physical bunch of kids from a blue-collar community,” he said.

“You have to have faith that things will go right and don’t fear a bad outcome. A lot of people probably won’t have high expectations for this team, but I see a lot of winnable games on the schedule. If we can get the kids to be focused and ready – and willing to play at 110 mph with their hair on fire – we’ll be all right. We’ll be more than all right.”

After his hiring is finalized at Monday’s school board meeting, Mulligan is scheduled for a meet and greet with the Pinconning student body around lunch break Tuesday. He makes his head coaching debut Aug. 28 at Standish-Sterling.

PINCONNING FOOTBALL